Not so much a general sports blog as an irregularly updated desperate plea for help.

Friday, January 14, 2011

You'll be hearing me talk ... face for radio, body for sin

Everyone's heard about Ted Williams, that homeless man with the golden voice. It might interest you to know Friday's Carleton-Queen's basketball doubleheader will be called by someone who is typically as dishevelled as Williams was when he was discovered — but minus the golden voice.

Yep, yours truly will be doing play-by-play for all four games at the Queen's Centre this weekend, on the radio live for CFRC 101.9 for the Ravens-Gaels games Friday and for TV Cogeco Kingston's tape-delayed broadcast of the Queen's Saturday games vs. the Ottawa Gee-Gees.

Short story even shorter, purely by happenstance, Will Cunningham, the station's sports director and a promising young broadcaster in his own right, needed a play-by-play announcer for a couple games in January.

It seemed like something to do on a lark, just to see if I could pull it off. My experience broadcasting hoops has all been on the colour-commentary end, including working with National Post reporter Mark Masters during the CIS Final 8 in 2009 and '10.

In terms of play-by-play, all I've got is about a half-dozen hockey telecasts a half-decade ago for Cable 5 in Simcoe, along with three quarters of Queen's football play-by-play more than a decade ago. (That was during Queen's 1-7 season in 2000; there were a couple games in which the two regulars just couldn't take it anymore; as one of them put it during a 60-point loss to Laurier, "Both teams have put in their backups, so we're putting in our backup.")

So please listen — and be kind.

Also, yours truly will be on News 570 in Kitchener around 10 a.m. ET Friday to talk about the Kayla Watkins story. (Watkins is the 12-year-old Toronto youth hockey player who quit her peewee rep team after another parent drafted a contract to limit her ice time.) That's right; promote the appearance on a campus station, downplay the one on a major talk radio station.